Trump meets Indian business partners

NEW YORK - US President-elect Donald Trump last week met in New York with three Indian business partners, raising fresh questions about a separation between the Trump’s business and future work in the White House, according to media reports.

Trump’s children, who are part of his presidential transition team, also held a meeting with Indian real estate executives - Atul Chordia, Sagar Chordia and Kalpesh Mehta, the reports said. The business partners are building a Trump-branded luxury apartment complex south of Mumbai. A picture of Trump standing alongside the men while giving a thumbs up was posted on Twitter earlier on Wednesday.

The meeting comes as Trump vowed to hand off his business to his three adult children in a blind trust to avoid potential conflicts of interest while serving in the Oval Office.A spokeswoman for the Trump Organization told The New York Times that the three Indian executives flew from India to congratulate Trump. “It was not a formal meeting of any kind,” Spokeswoman Breanna Butler said. Butler and Hope Hicks, a spokeswoman for Donald Trump, declined to comment when asked by the Times if the meeting included any discussion of Trump businesses in India or expanding that business.

The Indian executives have been quoted in Indian newspapers, including The Economic Times, as saying they have discussed expanding their partnership with the Trump Organization now that Trump is president-elect.

The Times said Sagar Chordia did not respond to a request for a telephone interview. But in a series of text messages with the Times early Sunday, he confirmed that the meeting with Trump and members of his family had taken place, and that an article written about it in the Indian newspaper, which reported that one of his partners said they had discussed the desire to expand the deals with the Trump family, was accurate.

Ethics lawyers in Washington, cited by the New York Times, said that a meeting with Indian real estate partners, regardless of what was discussed, raised conflict of interest questions for Trump, who could be perceived as using the presidency to advance his business interests.

“There may be people for whom this looks O.K.,” Robert Walker, the former chief counsel of the Senate Ethics Committee, who advises corporations and members of Congress on government ethics issues, was quoted as saying. “But for a large part of the American public, it is not going to be O.K. His role as president-elect should dictate that someone else handles business matters.”

In an account of the meeting that appeared in The Economic Times, Trump was quoted as praising the United States’ relationship with India and its prime minister, Narendra Modi.

Internationally, many properties that bear Trump’s name are the result of marketing deals - like the one in India - in which he is paid by someone for the use of his name but does not actually own the underlying property, according to the report. He has such marketing agreements in South Korea, the United Arab Emirates, Uruguay, the Philippines and Turkey, according to a list published by his company.

A former deputy editor at GQ India told the Times that he hosted an event at Sagar Chordia’s hotel during the presidential campaign, saying the Indian businessman expressed “elation” about the opportunities Trump’s candidacy could bring.

Trump caught flak earlier this week after his daughter Ivanka was photographed attending a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at Trump Tower. State Department officials noted that Ivanka Trump does not have security clearance and is an executive at the Trump Organization hotel chain. “Donald Trump’s children and son-in-law have been deeply involved in the transition and selecting who will be part of his administration,” said Noah Bookbinder, the executive director for Citizens of Responsibility and Ethics.